Actress announces retirement on Twitter

Christine Kellett

Hollywood actress Amanda Bynes has retired - at the ripe old age of 24.

The Hairspray star and Forbes young rich-lister used Twitter to announce she had quit the film industry because "being an actress isn't as much fun as it may seem."

"If I don't love something any more I stop doing it," she told her 300,000-plus followers in a series of frank tweets on the weekend.

"I don't love acting any more so I've stopped doing it.

"I know 24 is a young age to retire, but you heard it here first - I've retired."

She later thanked her father for his "words of wisdom" and the advice that "the truth will set you free."

Bynes has appeared on screen since the age of seven, when she was first cast in a confectionery advertisement.

She shot to fame on US kid's channel Nickelodeon and was given her own skit show, The Amanda Show, before starring in teen gender-bender comedy She's The Man in 2006 and as Penny Pingleton in musical smash Hairspray in 2007.

The California native has had a recent run of bad luck, being cast as the female lead in 2009 comedy Post Grad only to be replaced by Gilmore Girls star Alexis Bledel before shooting.

She filmed a pilot for the ABC sticom Canned, which was cancelled in the same year, and a five-year deal to design a clothing range was cut short when the company involved went bust about the same time.

Hairspray 2 was also canned.

Bynes, who reportedly earned $2.5 million in 2007 and was named the fifth highest-paid celebrity under 21 by Forbes, said her lack of creative involvement in her screen roles was behind her decision to quit.

"I've never written the movies & TV shows I've been a part of, I've only acted like the characters the producers or directors wanted me to play," she wrote.